“Well, there you are,” Sara said happily. “How was your day? Did you do fun things with Daddy?”
The little girl reached toward Sara’s face, wrapped her nose with her fist, and made a show of snatching it from Sara’s face, popping it into her mouth, and pushing her tongue against the inside of her cheek. “I haf yur nose,” she said thickly.
“Now, give that back.”
Kate, beaming wildly, blond hair bouncing around her face, waggled her head with playful defiance. “Nuh-uh. It’s mine.”
Thus, the tickling, and laughter from all sides, and the theft of more bodily parts, and the eventual return of Sara’s nose to her face. By the time the struggle was over, Hollis had joined in. Cupping the back of Kate’s head, he kissed Sara quickly, his beard—warm, familiar, full of his scent—pressing like wool against her cheeks.
“Hungry?”
She smiled. “I could eat.”
Hollis dished her out a bowl; he and Kate had already had their dinner. He sat with her at the little table while she dug in. The meat, he confessed, could have been just about anything, but the carrots and potatoes were passable. Sara hardly cared; never had food tasted so good as it had the last few weeks. They talked about her patients, about Peter and Michael and the others, about Kerrville and what awaited there, about the trip south, now just a few days off. Hollis had initially suggested that they wait until spring, when the travel would be less arduous, but Sara would have none of it. Too much has happened here, she’d told him. I don’t know where home is, but let’s let it be Texas.
They washed the dishes, set them in the rack, and readied Kate for bed. Even as Sara drew the nightshirt over the little girl’s head, she was already half-asleep. They tucked her in and retreated to the living room.
“Do you really have to go back to the hospital?” Hollis asked.
Sara took her coat from the hook and wriggled her arms into the sleeves. “It’ll just be a few hours. Don’t wait up.” Though that was exactly what he’d do; Sara would have done the same. “Come here.”
She kissed him, lingering there. “I mean it. Go to bed.”
But as she put her hand on the knob, he stopped her.
“How did you know, Sara?”
She almost, but not quite, understood what he was asking. “How did I know what?”
“That it was her. That it was Kate.”
It was odd; Sara had never thought to ask herself this question. Nina had confirmed Kate’s identity in their clandestine meeting in the back room of the apothecary, but she needn’t have; there had never been a trace of doubt in Sara’s mind. It was more than the child’s physical resemblance that told her so; the knowledge had come from someplace deeper. Sara had looked at Kate and instantly understood that of all the children in the world, this one was hers.
“Call it a mother’s instincts. It was like … like knowing myself.” She shrugged. “I can’t explain it any better than that.”
“Still, we were lucky.”
Sara had never told him about the foil packet; nor would she ever. “I’m not sure if you can even call something like this luck,” she said. “All I know is we’re here.”
It was after midnight by the time she was finishing her rounds. Yawning into her fist, her mind already halfway home, Sara stepped into the last examining room, where a young woman was sitting on the table.
“Jenny?”
“Hi, Dani.”
Sara had to laugh—not only at the name, which seemed like something from a distant dream, but the girl’s presence itself. It wasn’t until she’d seen her that Sara had realized that she’d assumed Jenny was dead.
“What happened to you?”
She shrugged sheepishly. “I’m sorry I left. After what happened in the feedlot, I just panicked. One of the kitchen workers hid me in a flour barrel and got me out on one of the delivery trucks.”
Sara smiled to reassure her. “Well, I’m glad to see you. What seems to be the trouble?”
The girl hesitated. “I think I may be pregnant.”
Sara examined her. If she was, it was too early to tell. But being pregnant got you a spot in the first evacuation. She filled out the form and handed it to her.
“Take this to the census office and tell them I sent you.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
The girl stared at the slip of paper in her hand. “Kerrville. I can’t believe it. I barely remember it.”
Sara had been filling out a duplicate evacuation order on her clipboard. Her pen paused in midair. “What did you say?”
“That I can’t believe it?”
“No, the other thing. About remembering.”
The girl shrugged. “I was born there. At least I think I was. I was pretty small when they took me.”
“Jenny, why didn’t you tell anyone?”
“I did. I told the census taker.”
Flyers, how had they missed this?
“Well, I’m glad you told me. Somebody may be looking for you. What’s your last name?”
“I’m not really sure,” Jenny said, “but I think that it was Apgar.”
68
The day of departure arrived with a hard, bright dawn. The advance team gathered at the stadium: thirty men and women, six trucks, and two refuelers. Eustace and Nina had come to see them off, as well as Lore and Greer.
A small crowd had gathered, family and friends of those who would be departing. Sara and the others had already said goodbye to Michael the night before, at the hospital. Go on, he said, his face red, get out of here. How is a guy supposed to get his rest? But the card Kate had made for him proved his undoing. I Love Youe Unkle Michel, Get Whell. Aw, flyers, he said, get over here, and gripped the little girl tightly to his chest, tears rolling from his eyes.
The last supplies were loaded into the trucks; everybody climbed aboard. Peter would ride in the lead pickup, with Hollis; Kate and Sara were riding in one of the large transports at the rear. As Peter fired the ignition, Greer stepped to his window. In Peter’s absence, the major had agreed to serve in his stead as Eustace’s second-in-command and was now in charge of the evacuation.
“I don’t know where she is, Peter. I’m sorry.”
Had he been so obvious? Once again, Lish had left him standing at the altar. “I’m just worried about her. Something’s not right.”
“She went through a lot in that cell. I don’t think she’s told us even half of it. She’ll bounce back—she always does.”
There was nothing more to say on the subject. Nor on the other, which in the days since the uprising had hung over them with its unspoken weight of grief. The logical explanation was that Amy had been killed in the explosion, vaporized with the other virals, and yet part of him could not accept this. She felt like a ghost limb, an invisible part of him.
The two men shook hands. “Be careful okay?” Greer said. “You too, Hollis. It’s a different world out there, but you never know.”
Peter nodded. “All eyes, Major.”
Greer allowed himself a rare smile. “I confess I like the sound of that. Who knows? Maybe they’ll take me back, after all.”
The moment of parting was at hand. Peter ground the truck into gear; with a throb of heavy engines, the line of vehicles drew clear of the gate. In the rearview mirror, Peter watched as the buildings of the Homeland receded from view, fading into the winter whiteness.
“I’m sure she’s somewhere, Peter,” Hollis said.
Peter wondered whom he meant.
From her hiding place in the culvert, Alicia watched the convoy drive away. For many days she had lived this moment in advance, attempting to prepare herself. How would it feel? Even now she couldn’t say. Final, that was all. It felt final. The line of trucks cut a broad arc around the fences of the city and turned south. For a long time Alicia watched it, the image growing smaller, the sound of the engines dimming. She was still watching when it disappeared.
There was one thing left to do.
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She’d taken the blood from the hospital, secreting the sloshing plastic pouch beneath her tunic when Sara’s back was turned. It had taken all her resolve not to clamp her jaws into it and bathe her face and mouth and tongue in its earthy richness. But when she’d thought of Peter, and Amy, and Michael, and all the others, she had found the strength to wait.
She had buried the pouch in the snow, marking the spot with a stone. Now she dug it free: a block of red ice, dense in her hand. Soldier was watching her from the edge of the culvert. Alicia would have told him to go, but of course he wouldn’t; they belonged to each other till the end. She built a fire of crackling scrub, melted snow in a pot, waited till the bubbles rose, and dipped the bag into the steaming water—as if, she thought, she were steeping tea. Gradually the contents softened to a slush. When the blood had thawed completely, Alicia removed the bag and lay in the snow, cradling its warmth against her chest. Within its plastic casing lay a destiny deferred. Since the day the viral had bitten her on the mountain, five years ago, the knowledge of her fate had lain inside her; now she would meet it. She would meet it, and die.
The morning sun was climbing into a cloudless winter sky. The sun. Alicia squinted her eyes against its brightness. The sun, she thought. My enemy, my friend, my last deliverance. It would sweep her away. It would scatter her ashes to the wind. Be quick now, Alicia said to the sun, but not too quick. I want to feel it coming out of me.
She raised the bag to her lips, pulled the tab, and drank.
* * *
By dusk the convoy had traveled sixty miles. The town was named Grinnell. They took shelter in an abandoned store at the edge of town that apparently had once sold shoes; boxes and boxes of them lined the racks. So, a place worth returning to, someday. They ate their rations, bedded down, and slept.
Or tried to. It wasn’t the cold—Peter was accustomed to that. He was simply too keyed up. The events in the stadium had been too enormous to process all at once; nearly a month later, he still found himself caught up in their emotions, his mind flashing restlessly with the images.
Peter pulled on his parka and boots and stepped outside. They’d posted a single guard, who was sitting in a metal folding chair they’d brought out from the store; Peter accepted the man’s rifle and sent him to bed. The moon was shining, the air like ice in his lungs. He stood in silence, drinking in the night’s stark clarity. For days after the uprising, Peter had tried to will himself into some emotion that would correspond to the magnitude of events—happiness or triumph or even just relief—but all he felt was lonely. He remembered Greer’s parting words: It’s a different world out there. It was, Peter knew that; yet it did not seem so. If anything, the world felt even more like itself. Here were the frozen fields, like a vast, becalmed sea; here was the immeasurable, starlit sky; here was the moon with its jaundiced, heavy-lidded gaze, like the answer to a question nobody had posed. Everything was just as it had been, and would go on being, long after all of them were gone, their names and memories and all they were ground like their bones into the dust of time and blown away.
A noise behind him: Sara stepped through the door, toting Kate on her hip. The girl’s eyes were open and looking about. Sara moved beside Peter, her boots crunching on the snow.
“Couldn’t sleep?” he asked.
She made a face of exasperation. “Believe me, I could. It’s my fault, I let her nap too long in the truck.”
“Hi, Peter,” the little girl said.
“Hi, sweetheart. Shouldn’t you be in bed? We’ve got another long day tomorrow, you know.”
She pressed her lips together. “Mm-mm.”
“See?” Sara said.
“Want me to take her for a while? I can, you know.”
“What, out here, you mean?”
Peter shrugged. “A little fresh air should fix her right up. And I could use the company.” When Sara didn’t answer, Peter said, “Don’t worry, I’ll keep an eye. What do you say, Kate?”
“You’re sure about this?” Sara pressed.
“Sure I’m sure. What else am I going to do? The minute she gets sleepy, I’ll bring her inside.” He propped his rifle against the building and held out his arms. “Come on now, hand her over. I’m not taking no for an answer.”
Sara acquiesced, shifting Kate from her waist to Peter’s. The little girl wrapped her legs around him, gripping the lapel of his parka to balance her weight.
Sara stood back a bit to regard the two of them. “I’ve got to say, this isn’t a version of you I’ve seen before.”
He felt himself smile. “Five years. A lot can change.”
“Well, it suits you.” A sudden yawn seized her. “Seriously, if she gets to be a bother …”
“She won’t. Now, will you go? Get some sleep.”
Sara left them alone. Peter lowered himself into the chair, shifted Kate to his lap, and turned her body toward the winter sky. “So what do you want to talk about?”
“I dunno.”
“Not tired at all?”
“Nope.”
“How about we count some stars?”
“That’s boring.” She shifted, making herself comfortable, then commanded: “Tell me a story.”
“A story. What kind?”
“A once-upon-a-time story.”
He wasn’t sure how, having never done this before. Yet as he considered the girl’s request, a rush of memories flowed through him: his days as a Little in the Sanctuary, sitting in circle with the other children, their legs folded under them; Teacher, her pale, moonlike face and the stories she told, of talking animals in waistcoats and skirts and kings in their castles and ships crossing the sea in search of treasure; the drowsy sensation of the words passing through him, carrying him away into distant worlds and times, as if he were leaving his own body. They were recollections of another life; they were so distant as to feel historical; yet sitting in the winter cold with Sara’s daughter on his lap, they did not seem apart from him. He felt a mantle pass and, with it, a twinge of regret: he’d never told Caleb a story.
“So.” He cleared his throat, stalling to assemble his thoughts. But the truth was, he had nothing; every story from his childhood had suddenly fled his mind. He’d simply have to wing it. “Let’s see—”
“It needs a girl in it,” Kate said, helpfully.
“So it does. I was just getting to that. So, once upon a time there was a little girl—”
“What did she look like?”
“Hmm. Well, she was very pretty. A lot like you, actually.”
“Was she a princess?”
“Are you going to let me tell this or not? But now that you mention it, she was. The most beautiful princess who ever lived. But the thing is, she didn’t know she was a princess. That’s the interesting part.”
Kate frowned bossily. “Why didn’t she know?”
Something clicked then; he felt the contours of a story emerging in his mind.
“That is a very excellent question. What happened was this. When she was very young, not much more than a baby, her parents, the king and queen, took her on a picnic in the royal forest. It was a sunny day, and the little girl, whose name was Princess …”
“Elizabeth.”
“Princess Elizabeth, saw a butterfly. An amazing butterfly. Her parents weren’t paying attention, and she followed the butterfly into the woods, trying to catch it. But the thing is, it wasn’t a butterfly. It was … a fairy queen.”
“Really?”
“It’s true. Now, the thing about fairies is, they don’t trust people. They pretty much keep to themselves, and that’s the way they like it. But the fairy queen was different. She’d always wanted a daughter. Fairies don’t have children of their own. It made her very sad not to have a little girl to take care of, and when she saw Princess Elizabeth, she was so moved by her beauty that she couldn’t help herself. She led the child away, deeper and deeper into the woods. Soon the little girl was lost and began to cry. The fairy queen landed on h
er nose, and brushed her tears away with her delicate wings, and said, ‘Don’t be sad. I’ll take care of you. You will be my little girl now.’ And she took her to the big hollow tree where she lived with all her fairy subjects, and gave her food to eat and a table to sit at and a little bed to sleep in, and before too long Princess Elizabeth had no memory of any other life, except her life among the fairies of the forest.”
Kate was nodding along. “What happened then?”
“Well, nothing. Not right away. For a while they were very happy together, the fairy queen especially. How wonderful it felt for her to have a little girl of her own. But as Elizabeth grew, she began to feel that something wasn’t right. Do you know what that was?”
“She wasn’t a fairy?”
“Exactly. Good for you, for figuring that out. She wasn’t a fairy, she was a little girl, and not so little anymore. Why am I so different? she wondered. And the taller she grew, the harder this was for the fairy queen to conceal. Why do my feet stick out from my bed, Elizabeth would ask her, and the fairy queen would say, Because beds are always small, that’s just how they are. Why is my table so tiny, Elizabeth asked, and the fairy queen said, I’m sorry, it’s not the table’s fault, you’ll just have to stop growing. Which, of course, she couldn’t do. She grew and grew, and soon she barely fit inside the tree anymore. All the other fairies complained. They were afraid she’d eat all their food and there’d be nothing left. They were afraid she’d accidentally squash them. Something had to be done, but the fairy queen refused. With me so far?”
Kate nodded, enthralled.
“Now, the king and queen, Elizabeth’s parents, had never stopped looking for her. They’d combed every inch of the forest, and all the lands of the kingdom besides. But the tree was very well hidden. Then one day they heard a rumor about a little girl living in the forest with the fairies. Could that be our daughter? they wondered. And they did the only thing they could think of. They ordered the royal woodsmen to cut down all the trees until they found the one with Elizabeth inside it.”
The Twelve Page 66
